


take the hit

by thecellabration



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Episode: s13e05 Advanced Thanatology, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Suicide Attempt, but it ends okay!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-22
Updated: 2021-01-22
Packaged: 2021-03-14 04:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28914852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thecellabration/pseuds/thecellabration
Summary: His first thought beyondDean isn’t waking upiswhat if I waited too long. Then,what if it was a dud. Then,what if it was a dud on purpose.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Kudos: 15





	take the hit

**Author's Note:**

> well. i watched 13x05 last night. felt very fine about it.
> 
> also hi i haven't posted fanfiction anywhere in like 9 years so this is terrifying <3

Three minutes feel more like thirty, sitting on the floor next to his dying brother, and Sam barely lets his timer hit zero before he pushes the syringe into Dean’s chest.

The seconds feel like hours. Nothing happens.

There’s no sudden intake of breath, no pulse, Dean lays still in his salt circle and nothing happens. The flickering lights die down around them, the house goes quiet, but Sam doesn’t notice. He shakes Dean, begs _no no no please Dean can you hear me come on wake up_ , shakes him again and again, until he finally sits back on his heels, hands trembling. He has no idea what to do, can’t get his head to work. His first thought beyond _Dean isn’t waking up_ is _what if I waited too long_. Then, _what if it was a dud_. Then, _what if it was a dud on purpose_.

He thinks about Dean saying he doesn’t believe in anything anymore. About Dean passed out drunk on the floor in their room, about Dean’s bruised knuckles and the flask in his jacket pocket, about Dean angry and lying and grieving, Dean bringing out a tin he’d apparently been carrying around and shooting himself up with no hesitation. None of what they’re dealing with right now is anything they haven’t dealt with before, but what if he missed something this time? What if there was some big warning sign, what if he should have known this was coming, what if he didn’t see it because he was so blinded by the idea that they’ve been here before and they’ll get through it again? 

Dean making impulsive decisions to sacrifice himself isn’t new—it’s more rule than exception, really. Even like this, it’s not new. After Idaho, the werewolf case a year and a half ago, Sam had eventually managed to coax some half-answers and admissions out of Dean. What Sam could gather from what he said, is that when he thought Sam was dead, he overdosed and almost killed himself to bring him back. Then, of course, there was the demon deal, and the Mark, and Amara, and every other reckless situation Dean has thrown himself into without much thought as to what would happen if he actually died and stayed dead. But at least, every time, he’d fight and he’d _try_ and he’d wake up again. 

He isn’t waking up.

This isn’t like the other times. This isn’t the end of the world, or big-stakes life or death. This is just a pretty much routine salt-and-burn in Grand Junction, Colorado, and there are other ways they could have found the bodies. This isn’t worth Dean sacrificing himself for. Had he planned this? Waited for the first opportunity to die on a hunt, to let Sam think something had just gone wrong, when really, this was how he’d meant for it to go?

Sam stares at his big brother on the floor and thinks that he’ll bring him back by any fucking means possible, if only to yell at him for this. He’ll scream in his face that he’s not allowed to leave, that Sam can’t take it. He might have been hanging on, but it’s by a _thread_ , and he can’t lose Dean, too. Maybe he’ll punch him, he thinks for a second, until he remembers that Dean would just allow him to do it, would probably think he deserves it. Maybe Sam will just apologize, for not knowing. For not doing enough.

According to Sam’s watch it’s not even been two minutes, even though it feels like an eternity, when, finally, there’s movement. Dean sits up, sucks air back into his lungs. Everything Sam could have said falls away, and the only words out of his mouth are, “Hey. You’re okay.” It sounds shaky and relieved and thick like he’s crying, which it turns out he is.

Dean gasps out a, “Yeah,” and Sam says again, “Yeah. You’re okay,” mostly because he still has to convince himself.

Sam slumps back against the wall behind him and runs a hand over his face. He’s still shaking. They’re both quiet for a few moments, Dean breathing heavily and resting his head between his knees, before he says, “I, uh.” His voice is raspy, almost breaks, and he clears his throat. “I know where the bodies are. We won’t have to burn them, though.”

Sam only just now notices how the house has calmed down. “Okay,” he says, instead of voicing any of the questions he should ask.

“I was thinking… We call the police,” Dean continues. “So they can identify the remains. Let Penny see her son again.”

Sam starts, his stomach drops. So Shawn died. “Okay,” is all he says.

He helps Dean stand up, and then they gather their things, and move down the stairs. The bodies are behind a hidden door on the ground floor—honestly would have been easy enough to find, but Sam won’t dwell on that now—and most of them are decayed enough to not be more than bones. But there’s Shawn, and the kid next to him must be Evan. Dean spots them and stills, stares at them with his jaw set before he wordlessly leaves the room. Sam follows him, because if they’re not burning anything there’s no reason to stay in there, and because he feels like he shouldn’t be letting Dean out of his sight.

He’ll ask. He’s about to, even though he’s not even sure where to begin, but then Dean is already on the phone. He disappears before the police arrive, leaving Sam to spin a story about going to the house after hearing tales about ghosts and being curious, stumbling upon the bodies. He gives a statement and a fake name and then finds Dean by the car.

Dean looks tired, drawn, but that’s the way he’s looked for weeks. He leans against the trunk with his arms crossed and says, “How’d it go?” when Sam approaches.

“About how you’d figure,” Sam shrugs, and then he schools his expression and does his very best to sound light and nonchalant when he takes the opportunity to ask, “So, hey, what happened back there?”

Dean looks away, so he’s going to be difficult. Sam stubbornly keeps going. “I mean, the shot didn’t work. And all of a sudden, you’re back.”

“I don’t know,” Dean says. Sam wonders if he knows how obvious it is that he’s lying. “I guess it took a minute for the drug to kick in. I guess I got lucky.”

Huh. Lucky. “And the ghosts?” Sam asks. He’d checked the EMF meter before leaving the house, but he didn’t really have to. It was clear that they were gone. Just less clear how it had happened. “Was that lucky too?”

Dean throws Sam a look and starts moving to get in the driver’s seat. “We can talk about it later.”

Sam scoffs without meaning to. “We won’t talk about it later,” he says. “You know that.”

Dean half-opens his mouth, debating, and turns to look towards where a gurney is being rolled out of the house. Sam watches too, when Penny approaches it, when she cradles her son’s head in her hands. “I saw Death,” Dean suddenly, finally, says.

He explains that it’s Billie now, that she took care of the ghosts in exchange for intel, that she told him that he and Sam are important and have work left to do. He doesn’t say that she’s the one who brought him back, doesn’t confirm that the drug Sam was meant to administer didn’t work, doesn’t say whether him standing here now was part of his deal with Billie or not. Sam wants to ask, but he thinks maybe if Dean isn’t saying it, it’s because he wouldn’t want to know.

He instead asks the next thing on his mind, “You okay?”

And somehow doesn’t anticipate the answer, “No, Sam, I’m pretty far from okay.”

They get in the car, and they’re both silent. Dean doesn’t blast music like he did on the way there, he doesn’t suggest they stop for food or for somewhere to stay for the night, so Sam settles in against the passenger side door and is almost asleep when, hours later, Dean speaks again.

He’s so quiet that Sam almost doesn’t hear it over the engine, especially since he wasn’t expecting it, “I didn’t mean to die.”

Sam stirs, sits back up properly and glances over at Dean. Dean is staring out the windshield, face carefully emotionless, both hands tight on the steering wheel. Sam doesn’t say anything.

“I mean… At first,” Dean says after another moment, and now he lets one hand go to scrub over his face. Sam’s heart clenches. “I just had to do something, quick, because there was a kid to save, and there was you, and it was the first thing I could think of. And I was there when you were trying to bring me back, and I swear, I wanted you to. I guess…” he pauses, like he’s searching for the right words. “For the case, I needed to come back, because I knew where the bodies were. I still had to save you.”

Sam keeps watching Dean watching the road, and only when it’s apparent that Dean isn’t going to keep talking, he asks, “And then?”

“And then,” Dean confirms. “Billie came, and I knew I was fucked, and it was okay.”

Sam says, “Dean,” softly, and Dean shakes his head, minutely. When he talks now, it’s like it comes pouring out.

“Like, I knew there was no way she’d bring me back this time. We already owed her a dead Winchester, right? But she brought me somewhere—this, I don’t know, archive. She called it her reading room. And she wanted information about the rip Jack created, and that other world, so I realized I could fix it,” Dean says. “I asked her to help the ghosts, and then I’d tell her what she wanted to know, and then it would be okay. And I wouldn’t have left you to deal with all that. I would have done some good.”

Sam turns to look out the window too, watches the I-70 stretch out in front of them as he considers what Dean’s said, thinks about the many hours left to Lebanon. Hours he could have had to drive alone, he thinks, and then it hits him what Dean _hasn’t_ said. “You didn’t ask her to bring you back.”

He hears Dean breathe. In and out, slow and deep, almost a sigh, before he says, voice quiet again, “Sort of asked her not to.”

Sam doesn’t reply, waits for it to settle in. It doesn’t. Today, his brother met Death, and wanted her to keep him. He wants to ask _why_ even though he knows, and he wants to be angry like he thought he would be, he wants to make it better and he knows he can’t.

A sign informs them they’re almost in Denver. Six more hours before they’re home.

“I’m sorry,” Dean says, then. “I--, I don’t know,” he turns to look at Sam—first time he has since he started talking, maybe even since they left Grand Junction—and seemingly changes his mind about what he originally was going to say, his facial expression shifting into something softer. “You should sleep. I promise I won’t drive us off the road while you do.” It almost sounds like a joke, but it falls flat.

Sam nods, to himself because Dean has already turned back to the road, and says, tentatively, “We’ll talk more later?”

“Yeah,” Dean replies noncommittally.

Sam fidgets for a moment. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to sleep now, doesn’t want to, but he recognizes when Dean wants out of a conversation. He thinks maybe he should give him this one, for now. So he settles back to lean his head against the window again, closes his eyes and listens to the engine, the smatter of rain on the roof of the Impala, Dean silently breathing.

He isn’t sleeping, but zoned out enough that he startles when Dean’s phone suddenly starts ringing. Dean picks up, says “Yeah?”, and then he turns to stare at Sam. His mouth hangs open, and Sam can hear the tinny sound of someone still talking on the other line, but he can’t make out any words or who it is, and Dean doesn’t seem to be listening either. He looks dumbfounded, shocked, and the most alive Sam has seen in weeks. 

Sam stares back. “What?” he asks.


End file.
